Lasseter also doesn’t paint the troops as the kind of heroic, larger-than-life action figures that make the fighting keyboarders drool with barely suppressed homoerotic envy.
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August 28, 2005
WB: Notepads on the Ground
Comments
I’d like to also recommend Lasseter’s coverage of the battle for Fallujah:
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/12016086.htm
The ur-Neocons (an extraordinary example of Billmon’s erudition, to say the least) were no different from their modern brothers and sisters. The difference is that it was a Democrat who realized the political value of war.
Once again, the first Democrat who says, “George Bush is losing the War on Terror, and I will win it. Win it by returning to our allies, bringing the United Nations into Iraq, and winning the respect of Muslims everywhere,” will win the Presidency walking away.
Posted by: arbogast | Aug 28 2005 10:40 utc | 2
I am not sure what you are referring to arbogast. You say
Once again, the first Democrat who says, “George Bush is losing the War on Terror, and I will win it. Win it by returning to our allies, bringing the United Nations into Iraq, and winning the respect of Muslims everywhere,” will win the Presidency walking away.
Which Democrat was elected to get us out of Vietnam?
just askin.
Posted by: dan of steele | Aug 28 2005 11:08 utc | 3
If I remember my history correctly, it was Richard Nixon who promised to get us out of Vietnam, but with “honor” or whatever. It was McGovern who just said, “We’re out of there.”
I *am* suggesting that the Democrats ape Nixon (a tautology again) by saying that they will win, but not by bombing Syria and Iran into the Stone Age but rather by involving our allies, involving the UN, and gaining the respect of the Muslim world.
The mot clé is *W*I*N*. (Who among you remembers Five-Star Kaplan?)
Posted by: arbogast | Aug 28 2005 12:16 utc | 4
Great post from the barkeep.
I know you’re targeting US audience but Patrick Cockburn of the Independent deserves a mention for his realistic reports.
For Example
Posted by: Friendly Fire | Aug 28 2005 12:44 utc | 5
I fear that no democrat will ever be able to get us out of Iraq. There is already a perception among many that the democrats have no stomach for war and are too willing to “cut and run” as the wingnuts are so fond of saying. That, in my opinion is why it is useless to hope that any democrat will cause a withdrawal from Iraq as it would give much ammunition to rightwing rhetoric.
It will have to come from the republicans, just as only Nixon could go to China and only Clinton could pass a welfare reform, one would have to be from the party that normally opposes such things.
McGovern ran on an anti-war platform and was defeated in a landslide victory for Nixon.
Posted by: dan of steele | Aug 28 2005 14:16 utc | 6
A fools choice reamins popular
Deal with the Iraq reality, or, insist on the identity of anti war.
The anti war identity crowd would rather the earth be consumed in flames than ever give up the anti war identity.
Posted by: razor | Aug 28 2005 14:25 utc | 7
I concur with argobast, only a Democrat can end the war. Draft Lee Hamilton.
Posted by: Wolf DeVoon | Aug 28 2005 14:42 utc | 8
The praise of the print media on this issue is fascinating..especially given the howls from the right on the dearth of reported “good news” from Iraq.
I noted earlier in the week this phenomenon of insisting on more reporting of good news…as if somehow it’s being left out on purpose.
As if the MSM isn’t reporting about the shinied up new electrical stuff in Haditha in an effort to screw over Bush..when reality is that Haditha is run by the insurgents, who took essential control of the plant we fixed.
The U.S. can´t get out of Iraq, because the Iraqi army has no weapons to defend the country. The U.S. can not give weapons to the Iraqi army, because they could use them against U.S. troops and fight the U.S. out of Iraq.
Big Guns For Iraq? Not So Fast.
Sharia v. Sharia
John McCain has urged immediate passage of a suspended
US Defense Appropriations Bill, just as the American Dynasty
urges immediate passage of a suspended Iraqi Constitution.
A push-down top-down management, in a world of bubble-up,
jihad against jihad, the so-called Democratic Crusade versus
the Islamic Mujahadeen. We are bracketed on both sides, our
100,000(+) minimum-wage troops surrounded on all sides by
literally 10’s of millions of the other “team”, a team that doesn’t
want us there, a team whose language and religion we can’t
speak and don’t understand, a team intent on evicting US by a
play book we can’t defend against: remote car bombs, sniping,
RPG’s, and suicide bombers. A growing tsunamai of them.
“Stay the Course” should be tatooed on the forehead of every
chief executive in the so-called Democratic West. But while they
pack their golden parachutes and exercise their stock options,
We, the People, are left sacrificed on the altar of abstract faith,
a faith pounded into US every day by Hollywood and Wall Street.
“Fire on the mountain, run boys run, Devil’s in the house of the
rising sun,” is an old folk song that applies more than ever to
this faux conflict. If there is a real US interest in Iraq, if it’s in our
strategic survival plan to *force* democracy on a state that for
thirty-five years remained secular only because its strong-man
brought secret terror to its people and murder to its dissenters,
then the solution is simple.
Give Saddam the option: Swear allegiance to the US, and we
will re-install him and his Baathist secret police; or the US will
turn Saddam over to the mullahs and their mujahadeen.
Simple as that. Be our general-pro-tem, or die. He’ll roll over.
Then our generals give him a time-table to rebuild his secret
police, or face the mullahs and their mujahadeen with rag-tag.
We arm him, equip him, and *then we pull the h–l out of there*.
This Iraq gambit was nothing more than a Christian Crusade.
It was a fraud from its inception. Everyone knows that by now.
The WMD’s were a fraud. The yellow-cake leak, a concoction.
This blood-for-oil morass is killing our children-soldiers, and
will *continue* to kill our children-soldiers if we stay the course.
Our Senators talk about both sides of their mouths. “We have
to win the war on terror”, yet only a half dozen of their own kids
are in the military, and even fewer on active duty in Iraq. One-
half of one-hundredth percent of our government leaders have
“skin in the game”, as Cindy Sheehan likes to say. If you add
the moguls and brokers on Wall Street, it’s more like one-half
of one-*ten thousandth* percent have sent their kids to the fray.
So if this really is a War of the Worlds, if this is a Neo Onward
Christian Soldiers jihad v. jihad, then it comes down to this.
Step up, or shut up. You are either with US (putting your own
children and your own assets in harm’s way) or you’re against
US (traitors, cowards and incitors to riot, mayhem and murder).
If Wall Street and Hollywood and Madison Avenue and the
Beltway doesn’t step up, then brother, we must step down
in Iraq. Turn it back over to Saddam, remind him that at any
time we can roust him again, and murder his people. Get
that cheap-oil life-blood energy production back into play!
This isn’t some grand social experiment. The United States
is a secular nation, not some Freemason Templar Sparta.
Right now, today, over half of the folks in America are broke,
permanently disinherited and disenfranchised, their debts
and trespasses forever engraved in silicon. More than two-
thirds of Americans will die while at work, or will die in some
HMO ghetto on crackers and cat food, their so-called golden
years, like those of our child-soldiers, stolen away, locked
up and forgotten in some corporate-socialist bank vault.
They are destituting Americans and destituting Iraqis. They
are destituting all of the aboriginal peoples of the world, for
this unwinnable-by-definition “War on Terrorism” charade.
Get the h–l out of Iraq, and get the h–l our of our lives!
The Constitution never provided for Senators-for-life.
And the Constitution never provided salaries, benefits,
health care and pensions far, far above most of US.
You were supposed to serve just for the *honor* of it.
Bottom line, either step up, Senator, or shut up. Period.
Give up your benefits, the same as ours are being cut.
Give up your cushy pension, the same as ours are cut.
Give up your kid-glove medical care, and stand in line
for overpriced prescription drugs, like we have to do.
Give up your six-figure incomes, your 25% COLA, your
soft-money slush fund, your re-election treasure chest.
Most of all, get some of your own skin in the crusade!
Posted by: tante aime | Aug 28 2005 16:50 utc | 11
As a veteran of the Vietnam War I keep repeating the similarities between 33 years ago and today. At least, I’m not the only one. Today’s Washington Post Sunday Outlook article A Tale of Two Wars is explicit about the parallels.
There are three options 1) Withdraw now, 2) Withdraw later after defeat or 3) pacify Iraq. The USA will not withdraw now. Like Vietnam, the US won’t pull out until enough politicians are elected who will stop funding the war. The GOP did such a good job of painting the malaise of the 70’s and the Vietnam defeat on the Democrats that they are hidden in their tiny Congressional hide-a-ways right now.
Pacification of the Sunni Arabs will take 500,000 to a million troops, concentration camps and ethnic cleansing. Measures not yet taken and which are against the grain of a Western democracy. So the USA marches down the path of staying the coarse, fighting the war on the cheap and ultimately being defeated by a peoples liberation movement, all over again.
Posted by: Jim S | Aug 28 2005 16:59 utc | 13
I think it’s great that Knight Ridder has been skeptical of Bush lies that got us into Iraq. But Knight Ridder just purchased the Idaho Statesman and the Love-Fest coverage of Bush’s visit to Idaho last week would make any sane person vomit. So far, Knight-Ridder just wants to appease the Republican readers rather than tell the truth.
Posted by: FierceMamaBobcat | Aug 28 2005 18:11 utc | 14
Is Billmon buttering someone up in “msm”?
Yes, Knight-Ridder & it’s bureau Chief should get a Pulitzer. However, your praise for the elite media is far too broad brush. In general, it’s been the worst of any war, apart from an isolated print journalist – Knight Ridder here, Cockburn in UK & a few Indies here & there. There has apparently been massive bombing & we know ZERO about that. And the Most Important Story, the DU that USgov is spreading everywhere by the hundreds, if not thousands, of tons is not being discussed at all.
The biggest stories about press coverage are:
1) US Military deliberately murdered the non-embedded press to keep them from covering the war.
2) When Al-Jazeera made waging Imperial Wars impossible, they targeted their journos & put so much pressure on – no details- that they’ve forced Owner to put it up for sale – most likely to rich Saudis who will destroy it.
The one virtue of TV is that it has the power to make war obsolete/impossible, esp. in the age of satellites. Yet, it’s complete blackout there, for precisely that reason. So, to say the press coverage is good, verges on obscenity.
Posted by: jj | Aug 28 2005 19:55 utc | 15
My respect for billmon is second to none… which is why I’m a little amazed at this kind of sloppiness in one of his entries:
Meanwhile, the absurdity of what the Marines have been sent to do — hold and pacify a province the size of North Carolina with a handful of jarheads — is described, not by Lasseter, but by the guys trying to do the pacifying:
Army Sgt. 1st Class Tom Coffey commands a platoon from the Army’s 28th Infantry Division along Ramadi’s southern border. His men are hit by roadside bombs almost every day.
Marines are referred to as ‘jarheads’, true, although not by anyone talking to one face to face, or by anyone who has any respect for the Corps when speaking behind their back, either (just to be clear, I have little respect for the military at all, so I’d probably use the term, too; I’m not fussing about that in and of itself).
However, the Army is not the Marines, and the Army Infantry are especially not the Marines. Any Marine, or any Army grunt, will happily tell you that, at very high volume, in tones laced with the utmost infuriated profanity, should you ask them if there’s any difference.
To talk about a job ‘the Marines’ are doing, and how ridiculous it is due to a ‘shortage of jarheads’, and then use a quote from an Army infantry sergeant in support of that statement, is, well, to say the least, sloppy reporting. Sorry, but it is.
A more accurate passage would read “Meanwhile, the absurdity of what U.S. combat forces have been sent to do — hold and pacify a province the size of North Carolina with a handful of riflemen — ”
“Grunts” would work, too; it’s an interchangeable term for U.S. soldiers who actually carry the weapons, do the shooting, and dodge (or soak up) the bullets in any war. “Ground pounders” might also work, but while it’s what one of many things we Army infantry trainees we referred to as back in Basic, I’m not sure if it’s a term used for Marines.
Moving on from that, tagging every right wing blogger with the term ‘homoerotic’ is pretty vile, and fairly stupid, too. There are a few female right wing bloggers out there, you know. We’re supposed to be the tolerant folks over on this side. I loathe the right wing, but I don’t need to descend to homophobic hate speech to say so.
Posted by: Highlander | Aug 28 2005 22:05 utc | 16
To talk about a job ‘the Marines’ are doing, and how ridiculous it is due to a ‘shortage of jarheads’, and then use a quote from an Army infantry sergeant in support of that statement, is, well, to say the least, sloppy reporting. Sorry, but it is.
You’re absolutely right. I was moving too fast on that one.
Moving on from that, tagging every right wing blogger with the term ‘homoerotic’ is pretty vile, and fairly stupid, too.
Right wingers are pretty vile and fairly stupid, too.
I loathe the right wing, but I don’t need to descend to homophobic hate speech to say so.
Yes, yes. Every joke involving homosexuality or perceived homosexual stereotypes is hate speech — if it comes from a heterosexual. I’ve heard it all before, and to tell you the truth I don’t give a flying fuck (no matter who’s doing the fucking). You want political correct speech, try another blog.
Posted by: Anonymous | Aug 29 2005 0:42 utc | 18
Thank you very much Highlander for getting everyone’s terminology squared away.
Now that that’s cleared up, I’d like to call upon the religious philosopers here, with this question:
How many rats can dance on the head of a pin, and are we morally deficient if we don’t give a rat’s ass?
Posted by: Ex-Grunt | Aug 29 2005 1:45 utc | 19
Interesting, the very differing opinions about this post of Billmon’s.
I’m with jj. The coverage of the Iraq sanctions, invasion and occupation stinks. To high heaven. I can’t find a single good thing to say about it, even if Knight Ridder is a little better than others.
Posted by: Noisette | Aug 29 2005 8:21 utc | 20
arbogast
Once again, the first Democrat who says, “George Bush is losing the War on Terror, and I will win it…
dan of steele
I fear that no democrat will ever be able to get us out of Iraq…
The Great Democrat on The White Horse can in no case arrive on the scene before 20 January 2009. And I prefer democracy in any event. How many tens of thousands will have been murdered in the intervening years?
razor
Deal with the Iraq reality, or, insist on the identity of anti war…
I don’t quite know what that means, but I am anti-war and I am trying to keep my eye on the reality of the Iraq war.
Jim S
Like Vietnam, the US won’t pull out until enough politicians are elected who will stop funding the war…
That is something I do understand. My “program” is to contest every party’s primary leading up to the 2006 elections in every district with an anti-war candidate : one who signs a written pledge that he or she will not vote one more thin dime for the war in Iraq.
Republicrat, Demoplican, Independent, Green, Conservative, Liberal, Libertarian… each of them needs an anti-war candidate in each of their primaries in every district.
They will not all win, of course, but they will ensure that there are enough anti-war candidates on the general ballot to make it possible to break the war-party majority in the House of Representatives on this issue. Hence to stop the war.
And it will clean a lot of the neo-con, neo-liberal made-men and made-women out of our government as well.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Aug 29 2005 9:32 utc | 21
John Francis Lee
I am with you, please don’t misunderstand what I am trying to say. Yes voting for antiwar candidates will help shorten the war and lessen the killing. What I tried to say is that it will not be a democratic president who will get us out of Iraq. It would be political suicide for the party as Jim S states.
I do believe our only hope is the republican party finally realizing that this is a bonehead adventure and the costs far outweigh the benefits. when that finally sinks in with the veterans who even though they are supporting this administration get to watch while bases and VA hospitals are closed all around them and the rest of the moneyed elite who finally realize that the gravy train went right by them and pulled into Halliburton Central, then and maybe only then will something change.
We had hoped that once the percentage of people against the war hit 60% that the administration would start to listen. That was the case during Vietnam. This administration has taken not listening to public opinion to a new high (or low, depending on how you see it). They are playing their hand quite well, the democrats are afraid to get painted as cowards and collaborators and the republicans are afraid of admitting they are wrong and so everything stays the same….no way out.
Posted by: dan of steele | Aug 29 2005 18:10 utc | 22
Thanks Noisette.
I want to say more succinctly what I was trying to say. When the story of the press & this war is written the handful of print journalists who smuggled out info. will be but a footnote. Like one miraculously visible object in a white out.
The Story is how the Military managed to surmount huge obstacles – in the age of instantly transmittable global info. & a hostile local press – to keep the American people more in the dark about what their military was doing over there, than they had been for any major military operation since Korea.
They learned that as long as the Elite media is on board, and they can get away w/freely murdering independent journalists w/stories they don’t want told, it doesn’t matter what a handful of print journalists write.
The Military’s Censorship Prevailed, to such an extent that not only were they able to force the local media out of the field & into being sold to locals whose interests are better aligned w/those of xAm. elites, but even when it slipped out accidently to the American people that the Military was deliberately Murdering Journalists, the Messenger was fired rather than the policy changed. That is Truly the Triumph of State Censorship.
Posted by: jj | Aug 29 2005 21:11 utc | 23
i hate this war
U.S. Sniper Kills Reuters Man in Iraq
” U.S. occupation forces in Iraq shot dead a Reuters television soundman and wounded a cameraman, Iraqi police said on Sunday.American soldiers opened fire on the team, killing the soundman and wounding the cameraman before detaining him,” the police said.
A U.S. sniper opened fire on Waleed Khaled while he was on his way to check a report of an incident involving the killing of two policemen in the western Hay al-Adil district.”
Posted by: annie | Aug 30 2005 0:12 utc | 24
journalist death toll…..
no end in sight
More journalists have been killed in Iraq since the war began in March, 2003, than during the 20 years of conflict in Vietnam, media rights group Reporters Without Borders said yesterday.
Posted by: annie | Aug 30 2005 0:31 utc | 25
I said:
Moving on from that, tagging every right wing blogger with the term ‘homoerotic’ is pretty vile, and fairly stupid, too.
Billmon responded:
Right wingers are pretty vile and fairly stupid, too.
Me again:
This is no excuse. Look, I know nobody likes to have their hand slapped for exuberance. Over on my blog, I’ve just been called a bully by a good friend because I stated my repugnance over a current comic book story arc he happens to like, in extremely angry terms. I don’t like being called a bully, and he and I have been going back and forth about that ever since.
Nonetheless, saying “well, the people I’m talking about are meanies, so I am entitled to descend to their level when speaking about them” is foolish and childish and, well, no excuse. When you tag right wing bloggers you don’t like with a phrase like ‘homoerotic’, clearly using it as an insult, you may well end up offending and/or insulting said right wing bloggers (who are bigoted enough to take offense at the suggestion they sexually admire members of their own gender) but what you mostly do is insult gay people. You know that. We all know that. You’re feeling defensive because some nobody from nowhere came onto a comment thread where people habitually give you textual hand jobs and chided you for something you already know was wrong. You don’t want to back down or apologize, and I understand that. Still, insulting someone on the basis of their sexuality is little different than insulting them on the basis of their race, and you understand that.
Then I said:
I loathe the right wing, but I don’t need to descend to homophobic hate speech to say so.
And billmon, in a frenzy of annoyance, responded further:
Yes, yes. Every joke involving homosexuality or perceived homosexual stereotypes is hate speech — if it comes from a heterosexual. I’ve heard it all before, and to tell you the truth I don’t give a flying fuck (no matter who’s doing the fucking). You want political correct speech, try another blog.
To which I say:
You know, I’ve heard this all before, too. It’s usually over on the right, however, that they try to shut down any and all critical discourse by screaming the phrase ‘politically correct’ in the same tone as they scream other phrases like ‘communist’, ‘pornography’, ‘sodomite’, and, um, ‘liberal’.
It is, nonetheless, a very familiar rant. And it’s unworthy of this blog, or of you, billmon. You know what you did. You used a bigger word, but essentially, your anger at the right wing caused you to, in print, call them all faggots. We don’t do that any more, because some words are hurtful and we’re supposed to be the members of the political discourse who care about that. I frankly don’t give a shit about your sexual orientation. I don’t like it when black commenters throw the word ‘nigger’ around either and claim impunity because of their race, but I’m not somebody who thinks that means everyone should use the word. I just think we should all be a little bit more careful what words we use.
My last point is this: when you call people you don’t like faggots, because they happen to disagree with your political viewpoints, you make yourself look like a narrow minded, ignorant bigot. When you curse at me for pointing this out, you look like a childish bully.
Whether you like it or not, you are an example and a role model on this blog. You influence how people think, and how they write. How YOU write directly reflects how you think. You have a deserved reputation for thoughtfulness, tolerance, articulation, and even no little wisdom. When you descend to this level, even momentarily, it demeans us all.
By the way, I make typoes like this all the time, but you swore at me like a punk, so I will point out that the phrase you were looking for in the sentence “You want political correct speech, try another blog” is actually “politically correct speech”.
I’m not looking to make any enemies here. But we need to be grown ups all the time, not just most of the time.